Symmetry Breaking, Afghanistan, Islam, Psychology And Civilization: Steven Weinberg In Memoriam

Abstract: Symmetry Breaking, a key concept in modern physics, is actually useful all over the world of thought. Continually, thinkers grab inequivalent categories, say “Christian civilization” and “Islam”, proclaim them equivalent, when they are not, and then proceed with insane thoughts. Breaking a symmetry, and then reasoning by analogy, when the symmetry does not hold, is fraught.

Another example of groundless symmetry proclaimed, is to believe that, because history happened some way before, it always will. Of course, it will not, and the titanic climate calamity is an example. In truth, the breaking of symmetry is crucial, in all matters of analysis.

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High minds call for high thoughts and instructive debates. As García Márquez noticed: “we are living in the age of vulgarity“… Better talk with a dead high mind than live creepy-crawlies. A top, unfortunately now defunct, physicist made an observation on civilization, which is particularly striking in light of those who claims there is a perfect symmetry between “Christian civilization” (something that is disqualified, because it never really happened, as Nietzsche pointed out) and Islam (a comically cosmic octopus, a superstition which pretends to be civilization itself). 

 

Steven Weinberg played a central part in formulating and establishing theoretical physics’ two standard models — the standard model of fundamental interactions and the standard model of cosmology. He was professor at Berkeley when he proposed the unified theory of electromagnetism and weak interactions, which is still in use, He would ultimately get the Nobel Prize for it in 1979. However, Berkeley did not deem that enough of an achievement, and did not give him tenure… 

Weinberg sometimes expressed strong views against religion, such as this: “Anything that we scientists can do to weaken the hold of religion should be done and may in the end be our greatest contribution to civilization.”

By religion, what ties us together, Weinberg meant religious superstition, of course. (The religion of the Republic also exists… and it’s good!)

 

This is interesting in the light of Feynman, the most famous US born physicist, who tried to insinuate, idiotically, that philosophy was of no value… in physics (his son became a philosopher)… while in truth he made plenty of philosophy (including a bit with yours truly).  

 

Compare with Joe Biden’s assertion that “the US has no national interest in Afghanistan”. Whatever the usage of that present mode means! Does civilization have an interest in Afghanistan? Biden just gave Afghanistan, a country of 40 million, to the Taliban, a group of superstitious fanatics who contradict the naturally given religion of humanity, the cult of reason.

Some cynics will say, oh no, Biden just gave Afghanistan to Pakistan. Indeed, look at the map: they fit perfectly, and have in common the Pashtun country, the dominant ethnic group of Afghanistan… enemy of others… and with a traditional old moral system anterior to, and compatible with, Islam.

 

The weak minded make a symmetry between Afghanistan and Vietnam. Kissinger told Nixon that within two years nobody would care about Vietnam, and Vietnam would become a backwater. However the North Vietnamese military were, roughly, no less civilized than the South Vietnamese military. North and South were both corrupt, in different ways, there was a rough symmetry.

 

I know that specialists like Lewis claim that: “Why did the discoverers of America sail from Spain rather than from a Muslim Atlantic port, out of which such voyages were indeed attempted in earlier times? Why did the great scientific breakthrough occur in Europe and not, as one might reasonably have expected, in the richer, more advanced, and in most respects more enlightened realm of Islam?

A more sophisticated form of the blame game finds its targets inside, rather than outside, Islamic society. One such target is religion—for some, specifically Islam. But to blame Islam as such is usually hazardous and not often attempted. Nor is it very plausible. For most of the Middle Ages it was neither the older cultures of the Orient nor the newer cultures of the West that were the major centers of civilization and progress but the world of Islam.”

Is Lewis lying, or just ignorant, or fundamentally stupid? Or is he just earning his stipend as a friend of the ruling fossil fuel plutocracy of the West and its love of Islam (Fundamentalism)? “Islam” meant, literally, that slavery was an integral part of society. Only servants of plutocracy like Lewis would consider that slavery is “civilization and progress”. This is just one point. That escaped slaves were rewarded by impalement doesn’t even need to be mentioned… 

Also Lewis observes that: “to blame Islam as such is usually hazardous and not often attempted.” In other words “Islam” is a sadistic hyper violent regime as hazardous as… as what?… a rattlesnake?

Religious apologists of violently interpretable superstitions (RAVIS) always evoke contexts. Here one can see that, in context, Islam apologist Lewis says slavery is OK, and “hazardous” religious terror is OK. Similarly, Biden says nobody has been killed yet, while terrorized Afghans fall from the sky. 

Islam is what one should call a war religion, a war superstition. Just read an unexpunged version of the Qur’an. Now the Jewish Bible, root of Judeo-Christianism, and thus Islam, is also a war superstition, where God order the Jews to holocaust an athnicity at least once. Islam is just more so (although there are versions of Islam which have their own version of the Qur’an, it’s not the case of the Shia and Suni).

 

Just as with pandemic and global heating from the climate calamity, some will say it does not matter. But Afghanistan was held by only 2,500 US soldiers for a total of 9,582 soldiers from NATO nations. No US soldier got killed in 18 months in Afghanistan. The mission in Afghanistan cost nearly nothing, to the USA, relative to the danger of letting fanatics in command of an enormous country, subjugating twenty million females into slavery.. 

 

Now that superstition is hyper powerful, What if the Taliban and his allies were to seize power in Pakistan, get control of the enormous nuclear force there? The senile Biden will say whatever about it. But the possibility has augmented enormously now, because Biden has shown that obstinacy in matters of fanaticism can win over anything, not just the military, but reason itself.

 

It is hard to see, at this point, how the electro-weak theory will contribute to civilization… But it can be done. The electro-weak depends upon SYMMETRY BREAKING. 

 

In physics, symmetry breaking is a phenomenon in which (infinitesimally) small fluctuations acting on a system crossing a critical point decide the system’s fate, by determining which branch of a bifurcation is taken. To an outside observer unaware of the fluctuations (or “noise”), the choice will appear arbitrary. This process is called symmetry “breaking”, because such transitions usually bring the system from a symmetric but disorderly state into one or more definite states. Symmetry breaking is thought to play a major role in pattern formation.

 

In his 1972 Science paper titled “MORE IS DIFFERENT” Nobel laureate (and great physicist, a co-inventor of the Higgs, if not more) Philip.W. Anderson used the idea of symmetry breaking to show that even if reductionism is true, its converse, constructionism, which is the idea that scientists can easily predict complex phenomena given theories describing their components, is not. Symmetry Breaking creates indeterminacy. 

 

Giving Afghanistan to violent supertitionists broke the symmetry, pandemonium will ensue. That pandemonium always favors the USA is an historical truth, it has become subconsciously institutional… Hence the will of the US Deep State to give Afghanistan back to the Taliban, obvious since 2001… However, what has always happened for some good reasons, does not have to stay true once these reasons are removed. Contrarily to the preceding centuries, North America is now vulnerable to attack… In more ways than one. For example, North America depends upon China… next to Afghanistan. So say:”Oh, let the Chinese discipline the Taliban!”. Yes, well, next dictator Xi of China would then discipline much more. And so on. 

On August 1, 1914, the fascist racist disciplinarian imperialists of Germany decided to take control of the French Republic. It would take just a few days. Then it would be Russia’s turn, and Great Britain would then negotiate. In the real world, the French fought like demons and five weeks later nearly destroyed the entire German army which had to precipitously retreat. So even trusting disciplinarian dictatorship to bring order is no sure thing, in the way of order. A branch of the Taliban is actually fighting the Pakistani government, and the Taliban, or its allies, one could well imagined, could be in control of Pakistan and its nukes… next year.

How one got into that calamity, traditionally called World War One, has to do with the envoy of US president Wilson waxing lyrical on the racial inferiority of the French, in Berlin, June 1, 1914, two months earlier, in the Kaiser’s office (and proposing an alliance, no less: crafty war mongering by US “Democrats” is nothing new, just ask Lincoln…)

Psychology matters, it’s symmetry breaking. Mania in crowds, and insanity in the collectives are all examples of symmetry breaking, and making more, completely different from the symmetrical order it arose from.

Patrice Ayme

This is a picture of Bliss Park, above Lake Tahoe, California, at an altitude of 1900 meters (6,500 feet), August 22, 2021, today. The smoke is blatant, it’s coming from the Caldor Fire, located 50 kilometers way. But not just that: notice that some of the large tress are already dead. This is symmetry breaking in action: trees centuries old are already dead. The future will then not be as the past: the time symmetry has been broken. At the same time, millions of of centuries old trees, which were not already dead, are burning in other giant California fires. The smoke, often laden with half-burned industrial chemicals, is so vicious, there is evidence that it can kill trees directly…

Science: Discovery Or Construction? Discovery Of Construction!

In his book “To Explain The World: The Discovery Of Modern Science”, Nobel Laureate Steven Weinberg asserts that modern science was DISCOVERED. Modern science was out there, under a bush, and a couple of physicists Weinberg esteem (Galileo, Newton), lifted the bush, and uncovered “modern science”.

This may not look like it, but that subtitle itself, that science was discovered, is a speculation on what reality is. In other words, it is a piece of bold philosophy… which, thanks to modern scientific advances in biology, can be philosophically shown to be, most probably, erroneous.

Indeed: is not the mind constructed? Modern experiments in neurobiology have shown this.

The Eye Is Only All-Seeing Because It Is Full Of Ideas And Theories About What It Sees

A kitten shown only a very distorted version of the world does not learn to see correctly.

(In an interesting case of cecity, Weinberg disparages the inventor of analytic geometry, Descartes, who made modern mathematics possible, including infinitesimal calculus, and Newton’s little activities: no Descartes, no Newton. However, once Descartes had invented analytic geometry, and another Frenchman deduced the correct universal attraction law, the work made by Newton was a matter of at most a couple of decades, since Kepler’s laws were already known. Kepler erroneously thought the attraction was 1/distance, when it’s actually 1/square of distance…)

Weinberg tried to clarify the subtitle of his book (‘the discovery of modern science’): science was not just ‘constructed’ but actually ‘discovered’. In truth, one should be careful. Take agriculture. Was it discovered, or invented? Both. Most agricultural products were not just discovered, but also literally engineered, through domestication. (A process which is still poorly understood: how can one get from a wild tree which could poison a human to death by eating twenty nuts, to a nutritious modern almond tree? Is not that an achievement more awesome than Newton’s? And the fact is, millions, nowadays, know how Newton did it, but none how Neolithic farmers made what was deadly, edible.)

Our apparent discoveries modify our brains, so, in a sense, they are constructions. Neurological constructions.

Now let’s ponder this: when something which has been constructed “discovers” something else, has that something else been uncovered, or constructed?

Are then what we think of the things of our world and the architecture our minds are made of, discovered or constructed?

No doubt, some will say, a bridge is constructed. Clearly so, when it is made by hand (as even Heidegger will understand). But, animating these hands are minds. Not just the ones of the builders, but the minds of those who made the minds of the builders. Because cultures, transmitted by languages, make minds.

Furthermore, what is the difference between a bridge made of stones, and a bridge between two neurons, or two systems of neurons? Philosophically speaking, not much.

The point is that we feel, or think we observed,  that things of the world are some way, and from that, we build bridges between neurons, or systems thereof.

Appearances are not just deceiving. Appearances we perceive lead to constructions of, and in, our minds. Shallow makes deep.

The process cannot be any different with “science”. From appearances, that we call “experiences”, we build explanations, connections between neurons, or systems thereof. So what did we truly discover, when we made a scientific discovery?

What we discovered is that we can build a mind in ways not suspected before. And that, somehow, it fits the real world better, meaning we can increase our powers on matter. This is all what modern science is. The same old same old which has made us evolve ever closer to the gods we are becoming at an accelerating pace. For better or worse.

Patrice Ayme